Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body

By Jo Marchant

Book Overview

A rigorous, skeptical, deeply reported look at the new science behind the mind's surprising ability to heal the body.

Have you ever felt a surge of adrenaline after narrowly avoiding an accident? Salivated at the sight (or thought) of a sour lemon? Felt turned on just from hearing your partner's voice? If so, then you've experienced how dramatically the workings of your mind can affect your body.

Yet while we accept that stress or anxiety can damage our health, the idea of "healing thoughts" was long ago hijacked by New Age gurus and spiritual healers. Recently, however, serious scientists from a range of fields have been uncovering evidence that our thoughts, emotions and beliefs can ease pain, heal wounds, fend off infection and heart disease and even slow the progression of AIDS and some cancers.

In Cure, award-winning science writer Jo Marchant travels the world to meet the physicians, patients and researchers on the cutting edge of this new world of medicine. We learn how meditation protects against depression and dementia, how social connections increase life expectancy and how patients who feel cared for recover from surgery faster. We meet Iraq war veterans who are using a virtual arctic world to treat their burns and children whose ADHD is kept under control with half the normal dose of medication. We watch as a transplant patient uses the smell of lavender to calm his hostile immune system and an Olympic runner shaves vital seconds off his time through mind-power alone.

Drawing on the very latest research, Marchant explores the vast potential of the mind's ability to heal, lays out its limitations and explains how we can make use of the findings in our own lives. With clarity and compassion, Cure points the way towards a system of medicine that treats us not simply as bodies but as human beings.

A New York Times Bestseller
Finalist for the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize
Longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385348177
• ISBN13: 9780385348171
• Release Date: January 2017
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Mind over Body research

This book documents Dr Marchant own journey research in the science and art of mind over body. She travels around to explore and experience the non-western medical tradition in pain relief and healing with the mind, the powerful medicine center to keep our health being. Stressful modern life creates lots of health problems in the three highs, especially with the modern factory produced food. Our strong belief controls the physical harmonic body coordination for health. The New Testament showed Jesus said – your faith heals you! Faith healing still in practice in America. Chinese Tradition Medicine look at health problem in wholistic way and the doctor only advises with patient active participation. The aim is to bring back health in balancing yin and yang, a good balance of chi. Still the western tradition begins to explore and research this mystery. In the final chapter, she concluded: by understanding how our minds influence and reflect our physiology, perhaps we can finally resolve that paradox – and live in tune with our bodies in a way that is based on evidence, not delusion. Amen!